1. Field
A touch screen device and an operating method thereof are disclosed herein.
2. Background Art
Portable information terminals such as, for example, personal digital assistants (PDAs), portable multimedia players (PMPs), MP3 players, cellular phones and the like have become smaller in size. In these smaller terminals, touch screen methods may be employed in place of conventional key button input methods so that the touch screen device can function as both an information display unit and an input unit, allowing users to more easily select and input information and interface with a computer. If a user's finger or other such object comes into contact with a specific point displayed on the screen, a coordinate of the contacted point can be obtained, and a specific process corresponding to a menu of the selected coordinate is executed.
However, the aforementioned technique has the following problems.
As described above, to allow for selection and execution of a corresponding menu in a portable information terminal equipped with a touch screen, all the available menus should be displayed so that the menus can be viewed and directly touched. However, this makes the screen configuration complicated since all the menus are displayed on the screen at the same time.
Furthermore, once any icon(s) or file information displayed on the touch screen is selected, the selection cannot be cancelled. That is, once the icon or file information has been touched, there is no way to change or cancel the touching action until the touch is released. Therefore, if a user has selected a particular menu in error, the information corresponding to the selected menu is executed as the touch is released. Accordingly, the user must first initiate and then terminate the current execution action before returning again to a menu information list for selection of the intended menu.
Additionally, supplemental information is not provided when a specific menu is selected. Therefore, the user has only the menu information currently displayed on the screen available when making a selection.